Of all the nations on the continent of Europe,
Germany has probably welcomed Billy Graham with the greatest enthusiasm.
The crusades there in 1960 were no exception. After a week in Essen, capital
of the Ruhr district and home of the famed Krupp iron and steel works, with
25,000 present on opening night, the team moved on to
Hamburg.1

The Hamburg week opened with a beautiful dedicatory
service in ancient St. Michal's Cathedral, conducted by Bishop Holstein.
On the first night the specially erected crusade tent was hopelessly overcrowded;
there were more people standing around it than were seated inside. A Die
Welt reporter described the scene inside the crusade tent:

The 35,000 are so quiet that one can hear his neighbor breathe.
And then something happens which had not been expected in Hamburg. Suddenly
the free space between the platform and the front row is filled to capacity.
Many men are there, many young men. What is happening inside of them 
in their hearts? But this is indeed no one's business. It is said there were
4,000 who had come to the front. In no city, it is

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said, were there so many. It happened in Hamburg. Does one know
his city? Does one know his neighbor?

The most unusual meeting in Hamburg took place late
at night at the entrance to the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's notorious underground
section. Ten thousand standees gathered to hear a Billy Graham sermon drawn
from theater marquee titles. Beggars, pimps, prostitutes, bar girls, ex-convicts,
assorted toughs all stood listening as Billy told them, "All of you are searching
for something. In Hamburg the nights are long, but much longer is the night
if there is sin in your heart."

The Graham team's last stop was Berlin, the island
capital then surrounded by Communist territory on all side. They arrived
less than a year before Nikita Khrushchev ordered the erection of the infamous
Berlin Wall. That week in Berlin may rank as the greatest external test of
Billy's long ministry. In my opinion it brought to the surface bravery and
hidden strength of character in the evangelist in the face of extreme danger
and showed the world for all time what God will do for a man of prayer. It
also brought our the finest qualities of courage in the Christian citizenry
of free Germany.

The people of Berlin had heard Billy before. Because
of his emphatic way of speaking, they had affectionately nicknamed him "Gottes
Machinengewehr" (God's machine gun). The crusade committee had designed and
erected a huge elongated tent and pitched it on the Square of the Republic,
just 300 yards from the East German border. A West Berlin newspaper published
a clever cartoon that had an East German guard commenting on Billy's preaching
tent: "If every machine gun on our side had a tent over it, the whole Republic
would look like a camping ground!" The tent capacity was 20,000 seats, and
when the Berlin meetings began, it proved too small.

The East Berlin police responded to Billy Graham's
arrival by giving him "twenty-four hours in which to get out of town." The
Communist newspaper Neues Deutschland described Billy as a "religious
charlatan" and declared that he had been seen in Paris escorting a blonde
described as "one Beverly Shea!" The lord mayor of East Berlin labeled Billy
"a representative of the Cold War by order of

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NATO." Crusade Chairman Wilhelm Brauer promptly sent the lord mayor
a German edition of Billy's Peace with God.

The East German government warned that all kinds
of reprisals would follow this "crude provocation" and demanded that the
tent be moved. Mayor Willi Brandt refused. Billy Graham's reaction was to
preach his first sermon in the crowded tent on John 3:16 and to read greetings
to the German Christians from the president of the Evangelical Baptist Union
of Moscow, USSR! Wisely, he refused to attack communism directly.

East German tanks and water cannons soon rolled up
to the Brandenburg Gate, pointed threateningly at the tent. At least one
tank fired a shot during an afternoon Bible class taught by Roy Gustafson
of the Graham team. West Berlin officials quickly dispatched a fire truck,
special details, and police dogs to the crusade tent.

At the Brandenburg Gate scores of "vopos" (Volks
polizei or people's police) harassed the hundreds of East Berliners seeking
to come through the gate each night to attend the meetings, and police managed
to bar many. (Most of the 1000-voice choir came from East Berlin). At other
entrances to West Berlin, people were pulled off subways, frisked, harassed,
and ridiculed. The "vopos" ripped crusade posters from the walls of the subway
and elevated train stations controlled by East Berlin.

Yet night after night, in spite of everything, the
people came from east and west in forty-degree weather, and for one glorious
week the Gospel was proclaimed in the Square of the Republic, just 300 yards
from the fateful boundary between two worlds.

Billy told the East Berlin people who came forward
at his meetings to give their pastor's names, but not to give their own addresses
to the counselors, lest they should be persecuted in the
follow-up.

One morning 25,000 teenagers gathered in the great
square, the tent proving too small. They heard a summons to make a personal
decision on moral and spiritual issues. Such a ministry was new on the German
religious scene.

For a change, the German pastors one evening requested
the omission of the traditional invitation music. They wanted to
see

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whether the response would be as great without the emotional impact
of the choir singing "Just As I Am." That night more people came forward
than the night before!

The final Sunday afternoon service was held outdoors
on a warm October day in front of a burned-out shell that had been the Reichstag
(capitol) building before Hitler set fire to it. It stood just a stone's
throw from the East Berlin border at the Brandenburg Gate, where hundreds
of "vopos" stood ready. "Vopos" also patrolled the railroad track that divided
the Soviet from the Western sector, and hundreds of East Berliners, unable
to cross, stood along the track and listened over a wire fence to the brass
band of 150 instruments and Billy's gospel message by public
address.

What a sight! Ninety thousand Germans gathered before
the Reichstag that closing Sunday afternoon, and most of them stood through
the entire service. Beyond the Brandenburg Gate on the Unter den Linden
Boulevard, others who were barred from attending strained to catch the message
of God's Word over the speakers.

Billy Graham told the great crowd in words translated
by Peter Schneider:

If Germany opens its heart and mind to Christ, it could once again
lead the whole world spiritually. We stand at the center of history in front
of this historic Reichstag. My plea to you today is that you come to a strong
belief in the Bible as the Word of God. Martin Luther was reading this book
when God spoke to him. You come back to this book, begin to read it, study
it, and God will speak to you, and through you perhaps history can again
be changed. Young people of this generation cannot remember much about the
war. They are searching for something to believe in  to follow. Let
that leader be Christ.

When the call came for a decision, the space at the
front of the podium in the large square could not accommodate all who wished
to respond. Counselors had to mingle with the throng to reach the
inquirers.

The crusade closed with 90,000 voices singing Martin
Luther's

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stirring hymn, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" ("A Mighty
Fortress Is Our God"). Citizens of the West returned to their homes in the
tense island city, humming another popular crusade tune, "Jesus Is Coming."
Meanwhile visitors from the East slipped back across the sector boundary,
some escaping detection, others being seized for the inevitable interrogation
and harassment.

Not until twenty-nine more years had passed did relief
come to East Berlin. Finally in 1989 prayers were answered, the pressure
eased, the Wall collapsed, and full, glorious freedom came once again to
reunite the brave men and woman and children of East and West
Berlin.

_________________

1. I did not accompany the tour to Germany, being
then occupied with the premier issue of Decision. This chapter is
based on coverage that I wrote for the magazine at the time, obtained from
team members who were there, from John Pollock's biography, and from contemporary
German and English newspapers. I have also since visited those
cities.